Who is Olivia Garrison? Non-binary teacher admits to helping students transition without parental consent
BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA: Olivia Garrison, a high school teacher, has confessed to helping her students change their gender identity without their parents' knowledge. Garrison, a non-binary person, teaches history at Del Oro High School in Bakersfield, California.
"My job, which is a public service, is to protect kids. Sometimes, they need protection from their own parents," Garrison told the New York Times of her work assisting students with their social transitions at the school. The social transition process prioritizes a child's rights and places responsibility on parents or caregivers to understand a child's specific needs for assistance and privacy. Clementine Morales, a former student of Garrison, shared with the New York Times how it was more uncomfortable to come out as nonbinary at home than it was to do so at school. Morales, now 19, described the procedure as requiring her to "look for parental figures in other people who were not my parents."
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Kern High School District, where Garrison teaches, even has a flier on its website that allows students to change their preferred name and gender marker without a parent’s signature. Along with name changes and new pronouns, physical adjustments like clothing and hairstyle can also be undertaken during the process.
'It felt like a parenting stab in the back from the school system'
A parent of a 15-year-old and southern Californian Jessica Bradshaw discussed her feelings over the social transition taking place in schools without the parents' knowledge. She stated, "There was never any word from anyone to let us know that on paper, and in the classroom, our daughter was our son. It felt like a parenting stab in the back from the school system. It should have been a decision we made as a family."
The Provincial Health Services Authority released the results of a study that looked at children who went through social transitions before puberty and included issues that many children, young folks, families, and caretakers had to deal with.
The study shows that children, who are insistent, consistent, and persistent about their trans identity and who socially transition and receive support for it, do very well. They are not more prone to be depressed or anxious and are functioning just as well as their non-trans peers. Studies have also shown that trans youth with supportive families had considerably better health outcomes than trans youth with unsupportive households.